Are 'pre-embryos' human? Which came first, Homo sapiens or human beings?
Callahan, Sidney
ARE 'PRE-EMBRYOS' HUNAN? What else could they be? SIDNEY CALLAHAN placenta takes place. Only after about two weeks, when the possibility of twin-ning is over, does the implanted embryo develop "a...
...Embryos in Petri dishes, whether clones or not, will be even harder to protect since they will be covered by the mantle of scientific re-search...
...Randolfe Wicker, head of the Cloning Rights United Front in New York, intends to clone himself as soon as he can find a scientist to cooperate...
...If form means active information shaping a coherent entity over time, the genetic information we inherit provides our human form...
...Who is Hecuba to me or I to Hecuba...
...Of course, the human death rate is always 100 percent in the end...
...Then there is the further doubt arising from the vulnerability of human embryonic life's survival rate...
...At the other end of the scale, when you consider the majority of ex-isting life forms on earth, the human em-bryo appears as an incredibly complex and highly developed organism...
...It is instructive to remem-ber the scale of time and space of the uni-verse in which embryos and adult lives exist...
...At that point, processing the in-herited species-specific genetic informa-tion produces human status...
...Millions of lost embryos join millions of aborted fetuses who join mil-lions of human lives lost in famines, floods, genocides, and pandemics, not to mention from normal natural caus-es...
...After all, goes their argument, no "per-son" can exist until irreversible indi-viduality has been achieved...
...As Stephen Jay Gould writes in a recent ar-ticle on how a new species emerges, "in-dividuals do not branch, only populations do...
...a team is more than its players...
...so many embryos, before implantation and after, do not survive...
...Let there be no human cloning, no RU486, no more select-and-destroy missions in the womb or in the lab...
...Can we really care about all these lost lives...
...I have no idea...
...Since embryos don't re-semble tiny babies, it will be an uphill countercultural struggle to ban RU 486 or other morning-after pills...
...Prolif e persons should not become too en-couraged by recent votes to ban partial-birth abortions because a revulsion toward late abortion-infanticides won't be much help in protecting early em-bryonic lives...
...For those who argue that having the form of an individuated body is nec-essary for ensoulment, I would offer the alternative proposal that form in-heres in the genetic information in the species rather than the individual...
...A conceptus is human when it is part of the human species...
...it is our formal cause...
...This inte-gration and orientation of a body marks "irreversible individuality," since be-fore this stage all the cells of the zygote are equipotential...
...My reading of the new evolutionary biology assures me that species and population member-ship is the key component of identity...
...Even some Catholic moral theolo-gians argue that a conceptus or zygote does not reach the status of a human in-dividual until after implantation in the procedures, and embryo experiments could be approved...
...The upshot of these moral reflections is the need to take up the unpopular and fatiguing cause of protecting embryos and early fetal lives...
...Nor does the microscopic size and in-visibility of embryos determine their moral value...
...Our collective membership in one unified body or one human family seems to be necessary if Christ's redemption is effected for all, once and for all...
...According to a story in the New York Times (May 25,1997), Wicker claims that his right to be cloned should not be any more the business of the government than "a woman's decision to have an abortion is...
...So opens another round in the debate over the status of embryonic life...
...With our limited human sensibilities, I'm afraid we can only truly grieve for those near and dear to us who have shared our lives...
...Besides, every living being is perpetu-ally involved in dynamic processes of development and differentiation, as well as processes of de-individuation and disintegration, on the way to death...
...To any observer beyond the hori-zon, there would be little difference in size or temporal lifespan between a human embryo and an adult human being...
...I am encouraged in this collectivist ap-proach by remembering that the gospel seems to insist that humans are mem-bers of one another in one body...
...Fortunately, the presence or absence of another person's emotional investment does not determine the moral worth of a human life, no matter at what stage of development...
...But I do know that they should not be used for scien-tific experiments or given over to clon-ing-rights enthusiasts...
...Individuals depend for their nature on their being a member of a species, and no one doubts that once the process of fertilization or syngamy takes place, the human conceptus is a member of Homo sapiens...
...No reproductive de-sire or technological imperative to in-crease knowledge can morally justify the manipulation and destruction of em-bryos...
...Humans have been created in the image of God, but the fact that God actually be-comes one with humankind ensures human dignity and worth...
...When the genetic program that keeps a body together winds down, different sys-tems begin to fall apart...
...then I could also agree that certain abortifacient drugs, selection Mr...
...If only I could agree with these ar-guments...
...Not surprisingly, he's also enthusiastic about cloning to further re-search in disease prevention...
...Group facts and entities really exist...
...Moreover, if irreversible differen-tiated individuality becomes the crucial marker for human status, then what happens to the status of Siamese twins or of multiple individuation: autistic children, those with various dementias, or cases of multiple personality disor-ders...
...But it seems doubtful to me that ensoulment of hu-man beings should take place one by one only when a "primitive streak" appears...
...Even includ-ing embryos...
...As for "ensoulment," it's a concept I'm not sure I understand...
...Of course, the in-credibly dynamic potential of human embryos is also crucial, but even when this human potential will not have any chance or probability of fulfillment due to natural or human interventions, the embryo is still human...
...Morally then, I must conclude that human status arises from membership in the one human species or one human family, which brings with it human dig-nity and equal worth with all other members...
...Only after about two weeks, when the possibility of twin-ning is over, does the implanted embryo develop "a primitive streak...
...Yes, but it's hard to comprehend this truth since embryonic life is microscopic in size...
...But how can this be...
...Catholic moral the-ologians proposing delayed hominiza-tion rely upon the argument that the form of the human body is necessary in order to have "ensoulment" or the cre-ation of an individual human person...
...Billions of galaxies with millions of stars glimmer out there, barely visi-ble...
...For some of these thinkers, who sometimes employ the dodgy term "pre-embryo," human con-ception is a process which is not com-pleted until implantation...
...Achieving individuality is less important than collective identity...
...And what, pray tell, should be done with those embryos already in freezers, who should never have been created in such quantities...
...Would it not make more sense to see hu-manity's special giftedness to be a col-lective creative gift to the whole human species from its inception...
...Individuals depend upon the popu-lation as a whole, which exists before and beyond them...
...A family exists before off-spring...
...While we all fell in Adam, we are all redeemed in Christ because the Word becomes flesh...
Vol. 124 • June 1997 • No. 12
